Name: Lucy in the Sky! NASA’s First Mission to the Trojan Asteroids
Start: 2024-12-02T19:30:00-07:00
Location: Chautauqua Community House

$Lucy in the Sky! NASA\u2019s First Mission to the Trojan Asteroids$

Door time: 7:00
Show time: 7:30
The Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids out at Jupiter’s orbit launched 3 years ago for a 12 year mission that will visit more asteroids than any previous mission. Joel Parker will talk about what Lucy has been doing since launch – including a practice flyby of a main belt asteroid that gave us a big surprise, what is coming up next, and what is involved in planning a spacecraft flyby. Parker will also touch on the unique challenges of long missions.
Joel Parker:
Joel Parker is a Director at Southwest Research Institute. He has studied objects such as massive stars in distant galaxies and small bodies more nearby in our Solar System. He has worked on the New Horizons mission that did the first flyby of Pluto, the Rosetta mission that orbited a comet for 2 years and sent a lander to the comet’s surface, and others including the Lucy mission. Joel also is a host and producer of the radio science show “How on Earth” on Boulder/Denver station KGNU.